[Leica] Best known photo ?

[timatherton at theedge.ca (Tim Atherton)]

> My recollection of the story is that the Rosenthal photo was
> presented to the
> world as the actual first hoisting, even though it was *actually*
> the second
> time that the flag had been raised.
> But, be that as it may, I was asking what makes "photojournalism"
> - whatever
> that is [ I see a lot of stuff called photojournalism which has
> virtually no
> journalistic content in it]? Does something have to be "real" or can a
> re-enactment such as the Iwo Jima photo stand as journalism?

Your recollection is incorrect - first Rosenthal's photograph wasn't of a
"re-enactment" - it was of a second flag raising, while fighting continued,
of a larger flag - most likely for "morale" purposes as the first one was
too small - the aim being to demoralize the Japanese and also boost the
Marines morale while the fight continued.

Secondly - the photograph wasn't presented to the world as "the first flag
raising". There were apparently some misunderstandings with captioning
because of the two flag raisings - but it was merely presented as the
raising of the flag by US Marines on Iwo Jima - which it was. That the
Marines, for operational purposes chose to raise two flags is immaterial.
Rosenthal captured both the truth and the facts of what happened with no
deception. Any later confusion about what was presented was due to factual
or semantic mistakes in the captioning - not in the accuracy or truth of the
photograph.

tim a